"We're talking about an international exam which is the best in the world," says the speaker as we discuss what will happen now that the GCSE appears to be in terminal decline. "Why are we not bringing it in?

Interesting. Last week I visited a state school in NZ that has started IB this year. I starting teaching IB Geography/ESS this academic year. While it's early days yet, I am increasingly convinced of the IB's rigour. It is a very demanding course of work. As governments in countries such as the UK, NZ, Australia etc. continually tinker with education (essentially trying to appease big business), I ownder if IB will become more & more attractive to parents who want their children to be ready for the new world that awaits them?

This is very interesting. And it confirms suspicions I have had for the last 6 months or so. I teach quite a lot of Chinese & South Korean kids. Many of them (maybe 50%?) have visited Japan in the last 12 months. Very timely as my first year IB Geographers move into our optional theme on Leisure, Sport & Tourism.

Earth is changing rapidly, and an increasing number of scientists say that humans have become the dominant force driving these changes. While the term has no formal definition, many agree that we are now living in an age shaped by human activity: the Anthropocene.

Evidence for the Anthropocene ranges from worldwide population booms to the expansive transformation of the landscape. But solutions are cropping up at the local level that could help create a more resilient global community."

How McDonald's, a beefburger company, penetrated and grew a business across India.

Tony Hall's insight:

This is a very interesting article. I know it's about McDonalds and lots of people don't care for McDonalds. However, it is a good explanation of how TNCs go about adapting their products to fit in to a new market with a very different culture. This is a really good example to use to explain the differences between globalisation and glocalisation.

In 2013, international migrants sent $413 billion home to families and friends — three times more than the total of global foreign aid (about $135 billion). This money, known as remittances, makes a significant difference in the lives of those receiving it and plays a major role in the economies of many countries. Economist Dilip Ratha describes the promise of these “dollars wrapped with love” and analyzes how they are stifled by practical and regulatory obstacles.

Tony Hall's insight:

Shared with me by a colleague (thanks @edtechbailey) this morning. My Year 12 Geographers have started looking at Migration. Absolutely brilliant timing:)

This epic video isn’t a CGI outtake from Lord of the Rings. It’s proof that a guy with a quadcopter managed to get very, very close to an erupting Icelandic volcano---close enough to melt the face of the GoPro camera that shot the video.

Several hundred million more people are expected to move to cities in East Asia over the next 20 years as economies shift from agriculture to manufacturing and services, according to a World Bank report

I came across something called myHistro a couple of years ago. It is a web based app that lets users create location based time lines using maps. Really very good, but students found it a little bit clumsy to use. I was so excited when I found Google's TourBuilder. It does pretty much the same as myHistro but is more user friendly. My students really like using it. So, I cannot for the life of me understand why they would make impossible to use in Chrome. Does this mean they're going to can it? I hope not!

The city of Sao Paulo is home to 20 million Brazilians, making it the 12th largest mega-city on a planet dominated by shortsighted humans. Shockingly, it has only 60 days of water supply remaining. The city "has about two months of guaranteed wa...

Tony Hall's insight:

This is just a little bit scary. While they don't mention it, I think Australia is moving into similar territory. Just a few years ago, the reservoir that supplies my hometown (amongst others) had fallen to 4% of its capacity. Luckily then rains came (eventually!) and things are ok for the time being. Until the next severe drought. I think this article hits the nail on the head when it makes the point that "Modern humans will not acknowledge reality until it slaps them hard in the face." There needs to be a very serious readjustment of how we use all resources, not just water. But we already knew that. Didn't we?

This is really interesting article. It would seem that international aid is similar to education in that it is trying to find the 'one big idea' that will solve everything. It's just not going to happen like that. People don't need to think outside the box so much as work with what is in the box already. The big dreams are important as an ultimate goal, but we need to understand that to reach that ultimate goal is going to take time. And that's ok as long as there work being done to get there.

The city of Berlin will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November. The wall split the city from 1961 to 1989 and became the iconic symbol of the cold war. Sean Gallup has photographed locations around Berlin today to match with archive images of when the city was divided

Tony Hall's insight:

I have scooped posts about war photography before. This perhaps doesn't qualify as war photography but it is very interesting indeed. My wife said "it looks healed".

South Korean education produces ranks of overachieving students who pay a stiff price in health and happiness.

Tony Hall's insight:

Being at the top of the PISA tables means what exactly? It is interesting that over the last 10 years or so countries such as Korea, Japan, Singapore & China (Hong Kong, Macau & Shanghai) have become well entrenched at the top of the table. Having lived/worked in Japan and now Singapore where I work with a lot of Korean and Chinese kids, it is very clear that the results in the PISA are due in large parts to long hours of attendance at cram schools (i.e. juku in Japan, hagwon in Korea, Buxiban in China). The mental stress caused by this must be horrible. Sand but true.

I always enjoyed TED videos. What really struck me was the opening sentence of the video, "everything is everywhere these days." This is so true in so many ways. The video uses different examples that you can find in different stores from places all over the world. How many things can you could in your bedroom that says "Made in China" or some other place other than the US? This is very common as we all know. Products and goods come from all over the world and even over seas. This is a process that we call globalization. However, the video introduces a process called containerization. This process saves an ample amount of time for the workers. The process was a success. "shrinking the world and enlarging human choice."

Globalization has connected the world in such a way that we hadn't thought possible. This idea has created rising economies all over the world and has made transport of goods and services move faster and continues to increase this rate with advances in technology. Containerization is a staple of globalization and without it, none of these products would be able to get from country to country. In essence it has developed the world of import and exports. To add to this success, globalization has also created jobs and communities which revolve heavily around the transport of goods. It saves time by using massive containers to move goods and it creates opportunities in places where it had not been possible before.

I believe this video is very interesting. It tells us that everything we have today is thanks to globalization and the reason we have it so fast is because of shipping containers! In the video it told me that before my time it was impossible to get swordfish from Japan or cheeses from France, but now thanks to globalization it is all possible. Globalization is even behind the reason how our phones were made!

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